Is Saxo regulated?
Yes, and more strongly than almost any broker in this region. Saxo Bank A/S is a Danish bank, supervised by Denmark’s Financial Supervisory Authority, and Saxo’s Middle East pages name it as the company that holds Gulf clients’ accounts. In Singapore you deal with Saxo Capital Markets Pte Ltd, which holds a Capital Markets Services licence from MAS.
Ownership changed this year. Swiss private bank J. Safra Sarasin bought about 71% of Saxo in March 2026 from Geely and Mandatum, and in July agreed to buy the rest, subject to regulatory approval.
Saxo in your country
- Singapore: Saxo Capital Markets Pte Ltd, MAS-licensed, with SGD accounts and an office at CapitaSpring.
- UAE and Saudi Arabia: Saxo Bank A/S in Denmark. The UAE minimum deposit for the Classic tier is USD 5,000. Saxo’s Dubai office is a representative office only and says it “does not provide financial services in the UAE”.
- Malaysia: listed among supported countries in 2024. Saxo doesn’t say which company serves Malaysians, and Malaysian rules bar residents from trading forex with offshore firms anyway.
- Kuwait and India: not accepted. Saxo stopped onboarding in both in July 2024 and offboarded existing clients.
- Pakistan: unclear.
We score Saxo Bank A/S, the Danish bank that serves Gulf clients.
Fees and account types
Saxo uses three tiers. In the UAE, Classic needs USD 5,000 and quotes major forex pairs from 0.7 pips, Platinum (USD 250,000) from 0.6 and VIP (USD 1.25 million) from 0.5. Singapore has no minimum for Classic, with spreads from 0.6, 0.5 and 0.4 pips across the tiers. There’s no commission on forex.
Elsewhere the costs add up: currency conversion is 0.25%, and Saxo’s Singapore pricing page lists a 0.12% annual custody fee for stock holdings if you opt out of securities lending. We found no inactivity fee in Singapore. We couldn’t get a gold spread from Saxo’s live tables.
Deposits and withdrawals
Singapore funding is quick: eDDA and eGIRO arrive in minutes, FAST and PayNow are instant to next day and free up to SGD 200,000, and cards are accepted up to USD 5,000 per transaction. Your first deposit must come from a bank in your country of residence, and Saxo takes no third-party payments. We didn’t find published withdrawal times.
Platforms
SaxoTraderGO and SaxoTraderPRO are among the best broker-built platforms available, covering forex, stocks, bonds, futures and options from one account. Saxo dropped MT4 for retail clients in 2015, so there’s no MetaTrader. We found no published execution statistics.
Is Saxo safe?
As a Danish bank, Saxo gives clients cash protection up to EUR 100,000 through the Danish deposit guarantee, and securities that can’t be returned are covered up to EUR 20,000 by the Guarantee Fund. It reported a net profit of EUR 72 million on EUR 664 million of income in 2025.
The black mark is recent. In January 2026 the Danish FSA fined Saxo DKK 313 million, about USD 50 million, for weak anti-money-laundering controls between 2021 and 2023, including poor monitoring of white-label partners’ clients. Saxo says the related orders are closed. We also found no current Islamic account.
Who Saxo suits
Singapore and Gulf investors with larger balances who want a bank-grade broker and one account for forex, stocks and bonds. It isn’t for small accounts in the Gulf, given the USD 5,000 minimum, and it no longer takes Kuwaiti or Indian residents.